The Federal Circuit vacated two PTAB decisions, holding that when a patent owner introduces a new claim construction for the first time in its post-institution response, the petitioner must be given a fair opportunity to introduce new arguments and evidence under that construction in its reply.
The Federal Circuit affirmed that United Therapeutics’ patents covering inhaled treprostinil for pulmonary hypertension satisfy enablement and written description requirements, holding that method-of-treatment claims need not separately address every disease variant in the specification.
The Federal Circuit held that patents governed exclusively by the America Invents Act cannot be drawn into interference proceedings—a landmark ruling that clarifies the divide between the old first-to-invent system and the modern first-inventor-to-file regime.
The Federal Circuit affirmed that patents covering poll-based social networking systems—connecting users via polling questions on mobile devices—are directed to the abstract idea of ‘matching based on questioning’ and fail § 101 patent eligibility.
The Federal Circuit affirmed rejection of a reissue patent application that tried to broaden claims beyond the original patent’s single disclosed embodiment, holding that reissue claims must be directed to the same invention explicitly described in the original patent—not to undisclosed altern
The Federal Circuit vacated the PTAB’s IPR decisions upholding Medtronic’s sacral nerve stimulation patents, finding the Board committed a fundamental error by limiting the motivation-to-combine inquiry to the specific application context of the primary reference rather than the full cla
The Federal Circuit reversed the dismissal of an induced patent infringement suit on res judicata grounds, holding that a prior judgment on direct infringement claims does not preclude a subsequent suit for induced infringement when the induced infringement claims are based on different operative fa
The Supreme Court held that the Lanham Act’s trademark infringement provisions apply only to infringing use in commerce that occurs within the United States; foreign conduct is not actionable even if infringing products ultimately enter the U.S. market.
The Federal Circuit affirmed PTAB’s holding that Medytox’s botulinum toxin patents were not enabled across their full claimed scope, and clarified that PTAB preliminary guidance under the motion-to-amend pilot program is non-binding.
The Federal Circuit affirmed rejection of a patent application covering a hypertension treatment method, holding that discovering an unexpected mechanism through which known drugs achieve a known result does not overcome a prima facie obviousness case rooted in inherency.